Climate change presents an enormous problem that requires the action of governments, corporations, and other transnational bodies. But the relevant institutions have been slow to enact even modest measures that would mitigate further harmful warming. What then is the responsibility of individuals in this situation? My book is an argument about the shape that individual responsibility must take to address the problem. I refute the ‘atomistic’ conceptions of responsibility that are dominant, both in contemporary philosophy and everyday life. This conception locates responsibility in what the individual does or fails to do. According to it, we should focus on making our own acts less impactful. The explosion of green marketing in recent years is evidence of the popularity of this conception of responsibility. However, in isolation, individual acts are neither necessary nor sufficient to cause or prevent environmental catastrophe. This conception of responsibility is more likely to lead to apathy and cynicism than to a decrease in global temperatures.

In its place, I argue for a more relational and political notion of responsibility. I show that climate change is best understood as a form of structural injustice, and that atomistic responsibility fails to account for this. I uncover the historical roots of atomism in liberal modernism, and point to alternatives in ancient and medieval philosophy, contemporary legal scholarship, and recent feminist thought. I then offer a radical reconception of responsibility, one that is both collective and individual. We must recognize the social location of individuals and the shared responsibilities implied by that location. Atomistic responsibility is a special case of responsibility; not as the norm. The arguments here are philosophical, and I engage with the best and most relevant contemporary work in in the field. But I also demonstrate the political pertinence of this conception of responsibility. We meet this responsibility – not just by purchasing “green” goods in grocery stores and shopping malls – but through coordinated efforts to transform unjust structures for the better.

PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL ARTICLES UNDER REVISION:

“Wise Latinas, White Men, and Worries About Impartiality”

JOURNAL ARTICLES

“Sympathy for Cecil: A Political Ecological and Ecofeminist Account of the Death of the Lion”

“Faking Nature in Brooklyn: The Wilds of Prospect Park”

CONFERENCES AND PRESENTATIONS

“A Nature Worth Faking: Valuing the Wild Spaces of Brooklyn’s Prospect Park,” Conference of the International Association for Environmental Philosophy, State College, PA, October 20-22, 2018. Co-organizer of panel, “​Fake by Design? Experiments in Rewilding, Urban Parks, and Environmental Simulations.”

“Predators and Sympathy: The Political Ecology of Big Game Hunting,” Second Biennial Conference of the Political Ecology Network, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway, June 20-22, 2018.

“Predators and Sympathy: The Political Ecology of Big Game Hunting,” Eighth Annual Dimensions of Political Ecology Conference, Political Ecology Working Group at The University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, February 22-24, 2018.

“’There is No Beginning, You Must Simply Jump In,’” speech at The New School for Social Research Graduation Recognition Ceremony, New York, NY, May 21, 2015.

“Justice, Responsibility, and Climate Change,” workshop on food justice and environmental philosophy with Corine Pelluchon, Food and the City Working Group, Institute for Public Knowledge, New York University, NY, October 10, 2013.